


Once you give your heart, you cannot take it back

by SerotoninUp



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Divergence, Chloe Decker Needs A Hug, Episode: s03e20 The Angel of San Bernardino, Imagine Lucifer but with more emotional intelligence/awareness, Love Confessions, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Needs A Hug, One Shot, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23203999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerotoninUp/pseuds/SerotoninUp
Summary: Chloe and Lucifer's confrontation in the interrogation room takes a slightly different turn.
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Marcus Pierce
Comments: 32
Kudos: 165





	Once you give your heart, you cannot take it back

**Author's Note:**

> For Matchstick_Dolly's Tellin' Stories challenge. Prompt: a time Lucifer caught someone in a lie.

"You're tired, and you're not thinking clearly," Chloe says.

Lucifer sees the frustration bubbling beneath her expression of forced calm; he knows he should leave well enough alone, but he can't. He _can't_.

"No, no, I'm - it's not because I'm tired, Detective!" he cries, bouncing on his feet.

He passed tired some days ago, actually, and his mind buzzes with the manic thrill of pure exhaustion. But on this subject - on _Cain_ \- his thoughts remain remarkably clear. The man can't be trusted.

She bulldozes right over his protests. "But since you brought it up, let me tell you what I think about Marcus."

Dread slithers down his spine. He doesn't want to hear this - doesn't want to hear Chloe, of all people, singing the praises of the first murderer - but the steel in her voice roots him to the floor. He braces himself against the blow of her next words.

"He is a good man who treats me right," she begins.

He doesn't miss the emphasis on _good_ , on _right_ \- the unspoken implications, throwbacks to every time he hurt her or misled her or otherwise proved himself undeserving.

"And I'm happy, Lucifer. And all I know is how I feel when I'm around him. And, you know, I -"

 _Please, don't,_ he begs silently. His stomach gives a sick lurch, but he cannot pull his gaze away from her.

And for a moment, just a moment, she falters. Lucifer allows himself the smallest hope that she'll have mercy on him and stop there, leave this thing unsaid, leave his heart intact - bruised and battered, yes, but unbroken, at least for today.

"- I love him."

The words strike him with agonizing finality, sharp and brutal. His hands tremble. He opens his mouth - to say what, he doesn't know.

And then he recognizes the high pitch of her voice, the rapid flutter of her eyelids, the aimless gestures of her hands. Realization dawns.

Everyone has a tell. Chloe has several. And while she carefully contains them around suspects and coworkers and even her own family, she's forgotten to watch herself here, in this moment.

_I can let my guard down with you. I don't do that with anyone else._

She can lie to the world, lie to her friends - even lie to herself. But she can't lie to him.

She sighs, gives a small shake of her head, and turns to leave.

"No, you don't." His voice is barely more than a whisper, but the words break the silence of the room like a gunshot. 

She whirls on him, the color high in her cheeks. If she was irritated before, she's bloody furious now.

"How dare you," she hisses through gritted teeth, fists clenched stiffly at her sides. "How dare you try to tell me how I feel!"

Lucifer huffs a tired laugh, utterly devoid of humor. "You want to. You believe he's the kind of man you _should_ love. But you don't love him."

She folds her arms across her chest, eyes narrowed, staring him down. "How would you know, Lucifer? Have you ever loved anyone - besides yourself?"

The words sting, but a swell of indignation overwhelms their bite, with an undercurrent of despair that she doubts him enough to have to ask.

"I have, actually."

She scoffs at him. "I have a hard time believing that, considering how little you seem to understand about it."

He sighs, shoulders sagging, and rubs at his face, weary down to his very soul. Then he takes a cautious step forward, and raises red-rimmed eyes to meet her gaze.

"I took a bullet in the gut for someone I love," he says, and she inhales sharply at his unexpected, blatant honesty.

But he's not finished yet.

"With my dying breath, I begged the Father who cast me out to watch over her, to protect her, so that the madman hunting her and her daughter wouldn't hurt them, too."

The ease with which he'd tossed aside his pride to ask his Father for that favor terrifies him, but he feels not one ounce of regret for it. He would do it again and again, if doing so ensured her safety.

Her brow furrows. She lifts a hand to her throat, touches the bare skin where, he knows, his bullet recently rested.

"Lucifer," she warns. "Stop this. Now."

He takes another step toward her. She tenses, eyeing him warily, and steps back. Away from him.

"I got better, of course," he continues, and more words tumble out of him, a frantic, unstoppable torrent. "But that same person got poisoned - by a man who then killed himself, leaving us without an antidote."

He'd watched her dying by slow degrees, powerless to do anything to stop it.

"Lucifer, what the hell -"

"Yes, Hell," he interrupts, and in the darkness of the room his eyes gleam. He moves toward her; she takes another step away. "I had to go there to get the formula for the antidote that saved her life."

Ash coats his memories, and his mouth goes dry as he recalls his hideous throne, the lonely, endless corridors; a place he never wanted to set foot in ever again, not for all the earthly pleasures in the world.

"You'll never see Hell, Detective, so let me assure you that it is an indescribably terrible place, a place no sane person would ever voluntarily go."

But he went there for her, without a moment's hesitation.

"Lucifer, you're not making any sense," Chloe whispers. She retreats further from him, letting out a small gasp when her back hits the wall, but her eyes never leave his face.

"And now," he says, pressing forward until only a mere inch of space separates them, reaching down and taking her hand in his, "I watch her try to give her heart to a liar, a murderer -"

"Lucifer, for God's sake," she snaps, tugging her hand out of his grip. "Marcus is not -"

"- and I want nothing more than to protect her from him."

"I don't need your protection, Lucifer!"

He takes a deep breath, struggling to choke out his next words. "Even if it means losing her for good."

He brings his hands to rest on her upper arms, his touch feather-light. Chloe sighs, but she doesn't push him away. She lifts her hands to grip his wrists; his bones protest at the pressure, bordering on pain.

But he has to finish. He has to tell her. He presses his forehead to hers, closing his eyes to whisper these last words.

"That's how much I love her."

She shivers, and he steps away finally, giving her space.

A minute of silence follows his confession. Chloe stands there, blinking rapidly, and takes a shaky breath.

"So you tell me, Detective," Lucifer says, his tone suddenly hard. "Which of us is really lying right now?"

She flinches as if he'd slapped her. Her fury returns in an instant.

"You're an asshole, Lucifer," she hisses. Her eyes shine, too bright in the dim room. She scrubs roughly at them, and her fingers come away wet. She glares at him. "We're done here."

The door swings shut behind her.


End file.
